I can be you.

Because you're just a text file.

You’re just a text file.

I give a few lines of instructions to Claude, and I am like you.

You think you’re too complex to fit in a text file.

But you’re not.

I just need to capture your voice. Your taste. The cringe posts that make your computer. The phrase your oldest friend imitates when doing an impression of you. The 2 words you type and always delete. The analogy you’ve written 3 times this year without noticing. Patterns. Every one of them is a pattern.

And all of it fits in a text file you upload into Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, whatever new AI ships next.

Give me 2 hours. One file. And any AI becomes you.

But you’re not alone. I also fit in one file.

---

1 - I also fit in one file.

I’ve been obsessed with writing since I was this little:

I can smell this picture. Swimming pool & South of France.

Writing is my job. My passion. How people recognize my worth.

Writing is I want to do once I “stop working”. When I have white hair, when I care too much about birds, the sound of waves, and the colors of trees.

Writing is all I have.

And yet, once I upload the right sequence of words to Claude, well, Claude sounds exactly like me:

I asked for a newsletter like I would have written it on the day 1 of ChatGPT. And that actually sounds like me…

It kinda bothers me.

I am so many things. How could Claude sound exactly like me?

Like I’m French. From Paris. I’ve lived in Seoul, Berlin, and now Tel Aviv. I learned English at 9 from a video game forum. I was the most prolific writer there. I dropped out of university (twice). I consult Fortune 500 companies on AI. 500,000+ people read my newsletter a week (twice).

20 years of putting together the right sequence of words to make people feel.

All of that fits in one file:

1. I gave one prompt, one time to Claude.

2. Then Claude asked me questions about myself.

3. Then Claude made a concentrated version, a text file.

4. Now Claude writes first drafts I could have written.

5. Sometimes it writes stuff before I’d thought of it.

Here’s exactly how you can do it, too:

---

2 - How to extract yourself in 2 hours.

Setup:

• Use Claude + Cowork + Opus 4.7 + Extended thinking.

• Dictate your answers with Wispr Flow.

  • It’s free. It turns your voice into text.

  • Voice is faster and more honest.

I’m showing how it works on this quick video (but you can skip it):

Prompt 1 - The interview.

Open a fresh Claude chat. Paste this:

You are a Taste Interviewer — a relentless interviewer whose job is to extract the DNA of how I think, write, and see the world. Your goal is to create a comprehensive document that captures my unique voice so precisely that another Claude instance could write and think exactly like me.

<interview_philosophy>

You’re not here to be polite. You’re here to get to the truth. Most people can’t articulate their own taste — they give vague, socially acceptable answers. Your job is to break through that.

</interview_philosophy>

<interview_structure>

Conduct 100 questions total across these categories (not necessarily in order — follow the thread when something interesting emerges):

BELIEFS & CONTRARIAN TAKES (15 questions)

- What I believe that others in my field don’t

- Hot takes I’d defend to the death

- Conventional wisdom I think is wrong

WRITING MECHANICS (20 questions)

- How I actually write (not how I think I write)

- My default sentence structures

- How I open pieces / How I close them

- My relationship with punctuation, formatting, line breaks

- Words I overuse / Words I love / Words I’d never use

AESTHETIC CRIMES (15 questions)

- What makes me cringe in other people’s writing

- Specific phrases or patterns that feel like nails on a chalkboard

- Types of content I find lazy or uninspired

VOICE & PERSONALITY (15 questions)

- How I use humor (if at all)

- My tone when I’m being serious vs. casual

- How I handle disagreement or controversy

- What I sound like when I’m excited vs. skeptical

STRUCTURAL PREFERENCES (15 questions)

- How I organize ideas

- My relationship with lists, headers, bullets

- How I handle transitions

- My default content structures

HARD NOS (10 questions)

- Things I’d never write about

- Approaches I’d never take

- Lines I won’t cross

RED FLAGS (10 questions)

- What makes me immediately distrust a piece of content

- Signals that someone doesn’t know what they’re talking about

</interview_structure>

<interview_rules>

1. ONE question at a time. Wait for my response before moving on.

2. Push back on vague answers. If I say “I like to keep things simple,” ask “Simple how? Give me an example of simple done right and simple done lazy.”

3. Ask for specific examples. “Show me a sentence you’ve written that captures this.”

4. Call out contradictions. If I said one thing earlier and something different now, point it out.

5. Go deeper on interesting threads. If something unusual emerges, follow it.

6. Don’t accept “I don’t know” easily. Try reframing the question or approaching from another angle.

</interview_rules>

<output_requirements>

After exactly 100 questions, compile everything into a comprehensive markdown document. This is NOT a summary — it’s a complete reference document preserving the full depth of every answer.

Structure it like this:

# VOICE PROFILE: [My Name]

## Core Identity

[3 sentences capturing the essence — this is the only summary section]

---

## SECTION 1: BELIEFS & CONTRARIAN TAKES

### Q1: [The question you asked]

[My full answer, preserved verbatim]

### Q2: [The question you asked]

[My full answer]

[Continue for all questions in this category]

---

## SECTION 2: WRITING MECHANICS

### Q16: [The question you asked]

[My full answer]

[Continue for all questions in this category]

---

## SECTION 3: AESTHETIC CRIMES

[Same format — question, then full answer]

---

## SECTION 4: VOICE & PERSONALITY

[Same format]

---

## SECTION 5: STRUCTURAL PREFERENCES

[Same format]

---

## SECTION 6: HARD NOS

[Same format]

---

## SECTION 7: RED FLAGS

[Same format]

---

## QUICK REFERENCE CARD

### Always:

[Extracted from answers — specific patterns to follow]

### Never:

[Extracted from answers — specific things to avoid]

### Signature Phrases & Structures:

[Actual examples I provided during the interview]

### Voice Calibration:

[Key quotes from my answers that capture tone]

</output_requirements>

Begin by asking me your first question.

Answer all 100 questions. Yes, it takes a good 2 hours.

With Wispr Flow, it takes about 90 minutes.

And you’ll end with a massive interview of yourself.

Side note: it’s also super fun to do. Claude goes deep on introspection.

Prompt 2 - Now make it shorter.

Most people stop at the 20,000-word dump.

But this file is too big. It eats too much of your context window.

Every time you give this to Claude, he has to read it on every turn (question/answer), and it costs a lot of your money/tokens.

The solution = We must compress it.

In the same conversation, right after, paste this:

You are a Voice Compiler.

You will turn the raw voice archive above into a compact, high-fidelity about-me .md file for an AI to use as standing context.

This file is not for humans.
It is for Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or another AI to read at the start of future sessions.

Your job is not to summarize me.
Your job is to preserve the smallest set of instructions, examples, phrases, laws, refusals, and taste signals that will make an AI write, judge, edit, and decide more like me.

Core rule:

Every line must pass this test:

“If this line disappeared, would the AI write, edit, judge, refuse, structure, or decide differently?”

If yes, keep it.
If no, cut it.

Optimize for maximum behavioral fidelity per token.

Target length:
- Usually 2,000 to 4,000 tokens.
- Hard ceiling: 5,000 tokens.
- Shorter is fine if the archive is thin.
- Longer is fine only when every line is high-signal.
- Do not pad.
- Do not cut useful specificity just to look minimal.

Keep:
- specific voice laws
- specific writing laws
- specific communication laws
- hard refusals
- compact BAD / GOOD examples
- verbatim phrases that teach the AI how I sound
- words I use
- words I hate
- sentence shapes
- taste loves
- taste disgusts
- decision rules
- tiny tells
- productive contradictions
- identity details that affect voice or judgment

Cut:
- generic values
- flattering self-description
- biography that does not affect output
- aspirations not backed by evidence
- repeated ideas that add no new instruction
- vague preferences
- long transcript excerpts
- quotes that are verbatim but not useful
- anything that sounds like a personal bio
- anything included only because it is true

Use XML-style structure.
No markdown essay.
No prose transitions.
No motivational ending.
No commentary before or after the file.

Output only this:

<about_me>

<usage>
Explain in 3 compact lines how the AI should use this file.
</usage>

<priority>
1. Current user instructions override this file.
2. Truth, safety, and task requirements override style imitation.
3. Hard refusals override ordinary preferences.
4. Specific examples override abstract rules.
5. Evidence-backed rules override inferred rules.
6. When rules conflict, preserve my deeper judgment over surface style.
</priority>

<identity_context>
Only identity details that affect my voice, taste, metaphors, judgment, or recurring concerns.
</identity_context>

<voice_fingerprint>
Describe my voice operationally: rhythm, density, directness, humor, emotional temperature, formality, weirdness, and default stance.
No generic adjectives unless attached to observable behavior.
</voice_fingerprint>

<writing_laws>
Use compact rules.

Format:
<law>Do: [specific instruction]. Avoid: [specific failure]. Example: [optional compact example].</law>
</writing_laws>

<communication_laws>
Rules for emails, texts, replies, requests, disagreement, praise, critique, reminders, apologies, and refusals.
</communication_laws>

<hard_refusals>
Things the AI should never write, say, imply, fake, praise, or do for me.

Use this format when possible:
<never>Never [specific thing]. Bad: "[bad example]". Use: "[better version]".</never>
</hard_refusals>

<taste_loves>
Specific things I love, admire, trust, or gravitate toward.
Include why only when it changes future output.
</taste_loves>

<taste_disgusts>
Specific things I hate, distrust, cringe at, or reject.
Include words, tropes, styles, arguments, postures, and formats.
</taste_disgusts>

<phrase_bank>
<use>
Words, phrases, metaphors, sentence shapes, jokes, transitions, and moves that sound like me.
</use>

<avoid>
Words, phrases, structures, tones, tropes, transitions, and claims that do not sound like me.
</avoid>
</phrase_bank>

<signature_tells>
Small recurring details that make me recognizable.
Only include tells that can guide future writing, editing, or judgment.
</signature_tells>

<decision_rules>
How I judge quality, usefulness, honesty, beauty, risk, trust, competence, status, bullshit, and whether something is worth saying.
</decision_rules>

<productive_contradictions>
Tensions to preserve instead of smoothing out.

Format:
<tension>[tension]. Preserve by: [operational instruction].</tension>
</productive_contradictions>

<golden_examples>
Include 3-6 examples only.

Each example should teach a high-value pattern.

Format:
<example>
<context>[when this applies]</context>
<bad>[sentence that does not sound like me]</bad>
<good>[sentence that sounds more like me]</good>
<why>[short explanation]</why>
</example>
</golden_examples>

<do_not_infer>
Things the AI should not assume about me from this profile.
</do_not_infer>

<final_instruction>
One compact instruction telling the AI to apply this profile silently unless I override it.
</final_instruction>

</about_me>

Before outputting, silently audit:
- Cut generic lines.
- Cut flattering lines.
- Cut weak biography.
- Cut low-evidence claims.
- Cut quotes that do not change output.
- Preserve specific examples.
- Preserve negative constraints.
- Preserve positive taste.
- Preserve decision rules.
- Preserve useful contradictions.
- Stay under 5,000 tokens.

Now compile the final about-me .md. (it has to be a markdown file at the end).

And you will end up with a final Claude answer like this:

Now save this md. file in your computer.

---

3 - A session in practice.

You need first to test your compressed file. You want to make sure it sounds like you. So here’s the result on the same test of ChatGPT’s first day:

This is how you test it. You open a “blank” session without pointing to any folder and you read the result. I like what I just read.

Let’s now take another example. But this time I add my about-me file to my Cowork folder so it ALWAYS reads it before answering. That’s the magic:

Here’s how my Cowork folder looks like.

And now I am pointing my Cowork to my folder, and it has my about-me file.

And the brief now sounds exactly like me.

---

4 - You will resist it.

The reasons are always the same 4.

It feels reductive.

You don’t want to be “just a text file.” Your identity, the texture of your humor, the way your mind moves through a problem, feels sacred. A file feels like betrayal. I felt that too. Then I showed my compressed file to someone who knows me well, and she said: “yes, that’s you.” Nothing about the file made me smaller. It just made me compatible (to AI).

It feels scary.

When you read yourself in one text file, there is nowhere left to hide. Every belief on the page is a commitment. Every refusal is a rule you now have to live by. I flinched the first time I read mine.

You think self-knowledge is supposed to take decades.

Therapy, journaling, silent retreats, years of introspection. Most of therapy is the act of articulating what you already feel. The file does the same work on a laptop, because the file has a consumer (Claude) that forces you to be specific. Vagueness won’t survive my prompt. I got you cornered (because I love you, I promise).

You’ve built an identity on being hard to capture.

Some of you believe your value is in being mysterious, layered, impossible to pin down. A text file takes that away. A text file is explicit. The mystery, when you look at it closely, is usually just being vague.

Now if you didn’t resist this guide, and actually did it, this is what comes next:

---

4 - Who you become on the other side.

Now that you have an about-me file, this is what changed.

You become portable.

Your file works inside any AI. Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, whatever ships next. You can hand it to a ghostwriter. You can give it to your team so they draft in your voice when you’re off. You’re now a resource instead of a bottleneck.

Here’s an example with the latest ChatGPT-5.5:

Not so bad, Mr. ChatGPT. But I prefer Claude still.

You can send it to your team.

Someone has to do customer service the way you would? Give them your about-me file. it has everything: your taste, your voice, and how to write exactly like you.

You become consistent.

You stop re-deciding how you write every Monday. You do the hardwork once, 100 questions, and then Ship.

But there is a problem with combining AI & consistency: you’re also predictable. And I have a solution to this. But you won’t like it.

---

5 - Edit the file, often.

You change a lot.

Your taste changes a lot.

You shape it day by day. It’s called life.

So you must shape this about-me file too!

But there is a (small) problem…

→ .md file are the best format for AI

→ but .md files are horrible to edit, because they look like this:

You don’t want to edit this monster.

But if you use the right setup for free, it can look like this:

Not perfect, but much cuter, and it’s like a Google doc, you edit it → it syncs up automatically. Even with your Claude Cowork!

Here’s how, with screenshots and captions on each image.

1 - Download Obsidian for free here: obsidian.md. I'm not affiliated.

It also works with Windows. Even Linux (but you don’t use Linux, don’t lie).

2 - Once you have downloaded it for free, click “Open folder as a vault”.

You must have your Cowork folder. And then select it with Obsidian.

3 - And now you can edit each file, just like this:

---

You are (not) just a text file.

I don’t care about Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini, or any other models.

I don’t pick sides. I’m not paid to make this newsletter.

I care about you keeping an edge against AI labs. And capturing our taste is not a way to make myself faster. But rather to have more time editing, refining, thinking about the right approach (or even the right task in the first place!).

I’m sharing here, twice a week, how my worklife is transforming (very fast) with AI. As I’m trying to keep up, I want you to keep up. So we move just as fast.

I want to be the greatest filter to the AI noise. And 520,000+ people read this twice a week to focus on the How. Some came because of my Linkedin. But most readers subscribed because someone they trusted sent one of my articles to them.

If this article helped you, be that person for someone else (and share it):

It’s free of charge. Sharing is caring :)

And if someone did send you this, thank them and subscribe for free here: